The Ache of Living Far Away

Emigration for a better life? But what does 'better' mean? It means leaving your family behind. Your mother and father become faces framed by a phone screen. It means instant coffee instead of tea from your grandmother's samovar. It means trying to speak what is in your heart in a language that still feels strange. You tell yourself you will leave so you can be free, so you can be yourself. But which self? You left a part of it at home. It means being awake while your mother sleeps, and sleeping through the hours of someone you love's birthday. It means your father is in the hospital and, instead of walking its corridors and bringing him medicine, you sit far away and cry because you cannot reach him. It means being told you should be grateful to be here instead of in your ruined country, when you want to shout that your country is beautiful and your people are kind. It means coming to hate planes. They no longer remind you of a wonderful trip, but of the flight that took you from your soil and fixed your last glimpse of home in your mind. It means growing lonelier while pretending to be excited. You tell your mother everything is fine and that you just miss her, though missing her has swallowed everything else. The scent of rain and earth, chocolate milk and a childhood Titap cake, become things you long for. You begin a life years behind where others seem to have started. Your suitcase holds a few grams of saffron, perhaps a packet of pistachios. When I still lived on that soil, I may have thought emigration would end the pain. Today I call it the beginning of pains that cannot be cured, a cold ache with no place to call its own. It means looking at your identity, your country, your land, yourself, from far away. Everything looks beautiful from a distance, doesn't it? I am hurting. I hope for a day when emigration means coming home to my Iran, whether I live to make that journey myself or my children make it after me. Long live Iran. #جاویدشاه